Contents

✥ As the newest nurse on Y4, the secret ward hidden in the bowels of County Hospital, Edie has her hands full with every paranormal patient you can imagine—from vamps and were-things to zombies and beyond…

✥ BLURB: Nursing school prepared Edie Spence for a lot of things. Burn victims? No problem. Severed limbs? Piece of cake. Vampires? No way in hell. But as the newest nurse on Y4, the secret ward hidden in the bowels of County Hospital, Edie has her hands full with every paranormal patient you can imagine—from vamps and were-things to zombies and beyond… Edie’s just trying to learn the ropes so she can get through her latest shift unscathed. But when a vampire servant turns to dust under her watch, all hell breaks loose. Now she’s haunted by the man’s dying words— Save Anna —and before she knows it, she’s on a mission to rescue some poor girl from the undead. Which involves crashing a vampire den, falling for a zombie, and fighting for her soul. Grey’s Anatomy was never like this… ~ Nightshifted ~ Shelfari

Vampires are exactly as they should be: cold, well-connected, organized, detached and extremely political. Weres and shapeshifters are not the same: weres change to animals, while shapeshifters (usually called Shape Changers) turn into another human being they touched at some point, through the DNA they collect. There are zombies, vampire daytimers and the ominous Shadows that employed Edie. And the German-speaking ghost that resides in an old CD player. ~ GR Reader

Minor weres, with diluted blood, that only get pulled by the moon are more common.

Bitten weres look like the weres from the movies, half man, half wolf, that sort of thing.

Each type of were has its pros and cons. We're all mortal without the moon in the sky—after that, it depends on how much were is in your blood." Lucas also explains that weres don't have long life spans because "every time you change it eats minutes off your life." ~ Fang-tastic Fiction

✥ The central focus of the early part of the series is the County Hospital and its Y4 ward, which is located deep down in the subbasement and is unknown to most of the rest of the hospital staff. "Floor Y4 catered to the supernatural creatures that no one else knew about: were creatures in their mortal phases, the daytime servants of the vampires, the sanctioned donors of the vampires, and shape shifters that occasionally went insane. And sometimes zombies." (Moonshifted, p. 4) Seeing these supernaturals as vulnerable, bed-bound patients who are not at their full strength is new and interesting. The protectors of County Hospital are the Shadows, creatures who literally form themselves from the shadows and who draw power from the positive and, especially, the negative emotions of the patients.

The vampires exist in communities called Thrones, living on the blood of their human donors, most of whom look forward to the day that they, too, will be changed over. The Thrones are not especially friendly towards one another, and their rivalries are part of the story lines. These vampires are strongest at the dark moon, a time when the werewolves are fully mortal, and thus at their weakest. Conversely, the werewolves are strongest at the full moon when the vamps are weaker.

In this world, were-creatures and shapeshifters are two entirely different species. A Y4 nurse explains, "Weres only have one additional form. Any animal, really, only they just get one particular one. Werebats, werewolves, werewhatevers. A shapeshifter can only be other humans, and only replicas of ones that they've touched once before. To be honest, I think being a shapeshifter is more traumatic. Changing into fur is nothing compared to changing into other people." (Nightshifted, p. 203) The only legal way for a zombie to regenerate is for them to stop by the clinic for regular dosage of human flesh.

A mysterious organization called the Consortium is somehow involved in ruling or at least controlling, the supernatural community, but few details are provided on exactly how that works. ~ Fang-tastic Fiction

✥ The series heroine is 25-year-old Edie Spence, a nurse who is offered a job on Y4 in exchange for a promise by a mysterious man to get her long-time-junkie brother, Jake, off drugs for good. Going in, Edie has no idea that vampires or werewolves exist, but she soon learns that those two types of creatures are just the tip of the supernatural iceberg. Edie is 100% human—with no special talents, no magical abilities, no super strength, and no super-woman beauty. She's a normal nurse in a big-city hospital who lives in a crappy apartment with her cat and tries to make enough money to get all the bills paid every month. Here's a nice description that perfectly captures the atmosphere of Edie's depressing, low-rent, urban neighborhood: "There was a light covering of fresh snow dusting the tops of all the cars outside making them look like a row of worn-down teeth." (p. 113) To survive in this life, Edie relies on her nursing skills, her well-nurtured tenacity, and her willingness to take a chance on some really strange people.

Edie hides her vulnerability behind a hard exterior built up after years of living hard on her own. She develops confidence as the story moves along, even though she fears that the vampires are going to end her life.

✥ Edie has two love interests: Asher and Ti. Edie's relationship with Asher starts out as a one-night stand but develops into something deeper. Asher is a shape shifter, which means that he can absorb the spirit of anyone he touches and can then change his shape to mimic their appearance. The more people he touches, the more people he can be. Ti is a zombie fireman whom she meets and falls for when he makes one of his periodic visits to Y4 for a regular dosage of human flesh—his only legal way to regenerate. Edie's relationship with Ti is intriguing. At one climactic point, she realizes the horrific things that he has done to come to her rescue, and she accepts them—and him. ~ Fang-tastic Fiction

In an interview, the author explains, "I just wanted to write a protagonist I could sympathize with. When my life was at its worst...reading about other characters with strange abilities began to feel like those characters were cheating. Of course they could solve their problems and get the man. But there was no one out there like me. So, I wrote Edie, a character I could believe in, one who only had the tools I had to deal with a very weird world."

Bio: Cassie Alexander is an author and a registered nurse and author of the Edie Spence urban fantasy series, beginning with Nightshifted, Moonshifted, Shapeshifted (out now!), Deadshifted, and Bloodshifted. She likes alchemy, blood, and science, in that order, and is your general all around nerd, with an emphasis on medical oddities and horror films. ~ More: About

✤ BOOK ONE BLURB—Nightshifted (2012): From debut author Cassie Alexander comes a spectacular new urban fantasy series where working the nightshift can be a real nightmare. Nothing compares to being Nightshifted. Nursing school prepared Edie Spence for a lot of things. Burn victims? No problem. Severed limbs? Piece of cake. Vampires? No way in hell. But as the newest nurse on Y4, the secret ward hidden in the bowels of County Hospital, Edie has her hands full with every paranormal patient you can imagine—from vamps and were-things to zombies and beyond… Edie’s just trying to learn the ropes so she can get through her latest shift unscathed. But when a vampire servant turns to dust under her watch, all hell breaks loose. Now she’s haunted by the man’s dying words—Save Anna—and before she knows it, she’s on a mission to rescue some poor girl from the undead. Which involves crashing a vampire den, falling for a zombie, and fighting for her soul. Grey’s Anatomy was never like this. ~ Goodreads | Nightshifted (Edie Spence, #1)

✤ BOOK TWO BLURB—Moonshifted (2012): After surviving a brutal vampire attack, Nurse Edie Spence is ready to get back to work-attending to supernatural creatures in need of medical help. But her nursing skills are put to the test when she witnesses a hit-and-run on her lunch break. The injured pedestrian is not only a werewolf, he's the pack leader. And now Edie's stuck in the middle of an all-out were-war… With two rival packs fighting tooth and nail, Edie has no intention of crossing enemy lines. But when she meets her patient's nephew-a tattooed werewolf named Lucas with a predatory gleam in his eye that's hard to resist-Edie can't help but choose sides. The question is: can she trust this dangerous new ally? And can she trust her own instincts when she's near him? Either way, Edie can't seem to pull away-even if getting involved makes her easy prey… ~ Goodreads | Moonshifted (#2)

✤ BOOK THREE BLURB—Shapeshifted (2013): Nurse Edie Spence is once again called upon to save a life…and this time, it’s personal. Can her new community of zombies, vampires, and shapeshifters come to her rescue when she needs them most? When Edie was fired from her paranormal nursing job at County Hospital, her whole world came crashing down. Now she’s is once again shaken to her core. Her mother is deathly ill and there’s only one thing that will save her: vampire blood. But with the paranormal community shunning Edie, where can she obtain it…without losing her own life in the process? Edie hopes to procure it at her new job at the clinic across town, where the forces of evil loom large. Vampire gang wars are rampant. Old underground enemies are rising to the surface. And Edie’s zombie ex-boyfriend has arrived at the scene—but is he the same man he used to be? And what should she make of the enigmatic doctor with whom she shares an unexpected connection? She’ll have to figure it out soon, because all hell is about to break loose—literally—and time is running out. ~ Goodreads | Shapeshifted (#3)

✤ BOOK FOUR BLURB—Deadshifted (2013): Edie Spence just wanted a vacation. A nice, relaxing, stress free, non-adventure away from the craziness that's dominated her life since becoming a nurse for paranormal creatures. But from the start, her trip on the Maraschino, a cruise ship bound for Hawaii, has been anything but stress free, especially when Edie's boyfriend Asher recognizes someone he used to know. Someone from his not-so-nice past. With their lives in the balance, will Edie and Asher be able to save their growing family or will this adventure be their end? ~ Goodreads | Deadshifted (#4)

✤ BOOK FIVE BLURB—Deadshifted (July 1, 2014): Ambushed. Blindfolded. Kidnapped by vampires. Edie Spence must race against time to save herself and her baby—from the nightmare that flows through her veins… As a nurse in the hospital’s secret Y4 ward, Edie has seen her share of daytimers. Once-ordinary humans who’ve tasted vampire blood, daytimers are doomed to serve their nighttime masters. Forever. And now Edie has to face something even more horrifying: she’s become one too… BLOODSHIFTED — Abducted by the vampire, Raven, Edie is taken to the catacombs beneath the Catacombs, an ironically-named L.A. night club that supplies fresh blood and other favors for its vampire Masters. Edie has no intention of swapping her nurse’s uniform for a cocktail dress—not when her newborn infant needs her. But if she and Asher—her shapeshifter fiancé—can’t figure out a way to bleed Raven’s power, they may never get out of this plasma-soaked pleasure palace…undead or alive. ~ Goodreads | Bloodshifted (#5)